Colleen Duffy

A great career comes full circle

In her 20 years at the Hutchinson Center, Colleen Duffy has been involved with transplant patients in nearly every facet of their care.

She worked in a pre-transplant unit, a transplant unit and now, with LTFU, a post-transplant program.

"With my new job at LTFU, I’m closing the loop. It’s definitely a full circle for me," she said.

And she is most certainly happy to still be at the Center, now as an LTFU patient care coordinator.

"It’s refreshing for me to be working with patients again. I’m fairly outgoing and I love working with people. Now that I’m here, I want to provide superb patient care and customer service," she said.

During her career at the Center, Duffy worked for about 12 years in the unrelated donor search and transplant program, where she facilitated the search for viable donors throughout the world. Most recently, she worked at a cellular therapy lab, but she missed the interaction with patients.

So, when the patient care coordinator spot came open, she dove right in. Now, Duffy spends most of her working day talking to patients, especially those who are coordinating a return visit after one year post-transplant.

Duffy also talks to doctors and other medical providers about LTFU patients and their needs.

"It’s a new experience for me with this LTFU group, but I quickly found out that we have a wonderful bunch here," Duffy said. "The effort that this program puts forward to help patients is simply amazing, and I’m seeing firsthand how LTFU is helping ensure long survivorship for our transplant patients."

When she is not at the office, Duffy enjoys swimming, biking, hiking—and walking her mischievous terrier/boxer dog. Talking to her two college-age children brings her a lot of joy as well.

Taking the LTFU position also fulfilled another professional goal for Duffy. "It’s an honor to finally work with Judy Campbell," she said.

Campbell was one of the very first nurses to work with the team that pioneered bone marrow transplants at the Hutchinson Center, and she has worked with cancer patients for nearly four decades.

"She is an amazing woman and one of the reasons why we have made such great strides in survivorship," Duffy said.